Balmorhea in christmas

[DandyDon]

Man! Everything is closed down. I am going to have to rethink my meal plan. I might have to pack-in all of my food for the week.

A lot of places will that week, and there's not that much out there. Good to call ahead to determine possibilities. Are the sites and the dive store open ok?

Nope, the actual Fort in Fort Davis is a National Park. Instead of going right towards the State park and the observitory, you hang a left and go about 1/2 mile and the original Fort is on the right.

There is a burn out there, though charcoal and campstoves/gas grills are allowed.

Ok, you'd mentioned "For smith NP" which is in Arkansas, and I wondered if you meant Ft.Davis SP, but I now see that there is indeed also a Ft.Davis NHS too. Unconfused.

Our local burn ban was just lifted for the first time in many months. Maybe that will change there soon if they got some rain too?

 

[AAdiver69]

Just spent the weekend at Balmorhea (Jan 13-15, 2012). Took some advanced open water students there for adventure dives. Other than the long drive (5.5 hours from San Antonio) it was great. The weather cooperated (55-65 for highs, no wind and clear, sunny skies), the Spring was warm (74-76 as always) and the facilities were adequate. One note of caution; we paid the $4.00 per diver fee to night dive Friday night. Great fun, but the idiots at the park locked the bathrooms/showers while we were diving. Froze our asses off getting out after diving without a place to shower/change. We stayed in the town of Balmorhea (4 miles up the road) so we had to drive back to our hotel to warm up. The park employees told us the next day that they locked the bathrooms because "that's what we always do". There is no park rule that requires it... I plan to contact the park service, but make sure you tell them NOT to lock the showers if you are planning a night dive. We did Navigation, Altitude diver (3,000 ft elevation there), Night, Peak Buoyancy, and a few more dives there. All but deep dive for the Advanced Open Water Diver Cert (PADI). Planning to get that at Valhalla Missile Silo in a few weeks...
Just outside the park in the "town" of Toyahvale is a dive shop. It's called "Funky Li'l Diveshop". It's run by a good guy named Darrel. He has a two hose fill station for tanks and a small dive shop with the basics. He's been there as a PADI Instructor for 25 years and he used to run the park as a government employee before that. He knows a lot about the park, diving, and the area. Nice guy too. His web is www.toyahvale.com and his e-mail is scuba@toyahvale.com.
We stayed at the "11 Inn" in Balmorhea. The owner, Dave, is a great guy. The hotel has the very basics...room, comfortable beds, hot showers and friendly owner. It's cheap compared to the other hotel in town.
On Saturday night we drove up to the Observatory outside Ft. Davis for the "Star Party". It was a 2 hour tour of the skies. They have seven powerful telescopes to view distant planets with. It was worth the hour drive. If you need any more info about Balmorhea, e-mail my via Scubaboard.